


who you gonna call?

by otherwords



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Gen, Halloween, I think this probably counts as crack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-12
Updated: 2015-11-12
Packaged: 2018-05-01 03:13:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5189966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/otherwords/pseuds/otherwords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint is a man in a pair of fishnet stockings, crouched in an air vent, with approximately twenty seven pounds of candy at his disposal. That's when the trick-or-treaters show up. And the aliens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	who you gonna call?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sullacat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sullacat/gifts).



Clint is huddled in the air vents, with thirty six full-sized Kit Kats, one hundred and fifty assorted fun-sized chocolate bars, a bag of candy corn, and an entire case of those flat, glossy Hershey's bars that Steve won't admit he likes.

Or, at least, they used be bars. The case has been up here for two weeks now, and the heating system has melted them into a soupy conglomerate. At least the metal of the vent is warm where it presses against Clint’s lower back and the unfortunately exposed portions of his ass.

Darcy had said the costume would be hilarious. Darcy had said the costume would be sexy. Darcy is wrong on both accounts, although Natasha seems to agree quite thoroughly on the first one.

Okay, maybe it's a _little_ hilarious. Three pictures from the official Stark Industries instagram have already gone viral this evening and two of them are of Clint.

Well, Clint's ass, to be specific, but Clint will leave the details to the scientists. Clint is a man of action. Clint is a man of assets. Clint is a man in a pair of fishnet stockings, crouched in an air vent, with approximately twenty seven pounds of candy at his disposal. He crumples up a mini Snickers wrapper and bounces it off the opposite wall of the vent. Make that one hundred and forty nine assorted fun-sized chocolate bars.

He hears the distant sound of the doorbell, and the shouted _trick or treats!_ of the latest gaggle of kids. Clint would almost feel bad about all the candy he’s managed to steal, but he’s hardly made a dent in the truly impressive haul Tony had acquired for this year’s iteration of Halloween with the Avengers.

The doorbell rings again.

Clint has been officially relieved of door duty this year, because, in Thor’s delicate phrasing, “the young should not be subject to Barton’s nethers”. Clint agrees.

The doorbell rings again. “Trick or treat!” someone yells in the high-pitched tone of a sugar-hungry child, out for conquest and profit.

Clint tears open a mini box of smarties and dumps them all into his mouth. Someone needs to answer the door and feed the beasts. He considers banging on the vent and shouting for someone to go do that, but he doesn’t want to give away his hiding place just yet. Melted or no, he doesn’t want to share the Hershey’s with Steve.

The doorbell starts up again. Clint sighs and stuffs a couple Kit Kats into his bedazzled quiver, then crawls over to one of the narrow hatches in the vent. Some practiced maneuvering later, and he drops back to the main floor of the mansion and heads for the front door.

He turns the corner into the foyer just in time to see Darcy taze a small kid in an Iron Man mask.

“Darcy, what the fuck?” he yelps, then claps a hand over his mouth, because this kid has just been tazed; Clint doesn’t need to make the situation worse by adding foul language.

Darcy spins, wild-eyed. “Clint! There you are!” She’s dressed as Thor, complete with flowing red cape, one hand looped through the strap of a replica Mjölnir and the other still clutching her tazer.

“What are you talking about?” Clint shouts, pointing at the little Iron Man, slumped to the tile just inside the door. “Jesus Christ, Darce, you just tazed a child!”

“Clint, for fuck’s sake —” Darcy says, but he misses the rest because she throws Mjölnir at him as hard as she can.

Just because it’s not the real thing doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt when it smashes into his breastbone and knocks him to the floor. It’s almost disorienting enough for him to miss the spatter of laser bullets that hit the wall directly behind where he has been standing a minute before.

Darcy scrambles over to him, on her hands and knees. The edge of her cape is singed, the smell of burning fabric clinging to her. She grabs Mjölnir and shoves Clint towards the nearest hallway off from the foyer.

“The kids —?” Clint says.

“They’re not kids!” Darcy says, and that’s all the encouragement Clint needs to stagger upright and run for cover. Darcy pulls him into a stairwell and slams the door shut behind them, cutting off the clamour from the front door.

“Holy shit, Darce, what’s happening?” Clint gasps, slumping against the wall.

“Aliens,” she pants.

“What?” Clint says. “Like — like, Thor aliens? Or like —”

“Like disguised-as-children-and-trying-to-kill-us aliens!” Darcy says. Mjölnir swings dangerously from the crook of her arm. Her voices gets softer and she says, “I thought they had you too. I thought it was just me left. There’s a portal on the front lawn, and Jane sent me a message saying if I could pulse it, it would close, but then all the networks in the mansion went down and I haven’t heard from anyone since.”

“The others?” Clint says.

“Still breathing, just not awake,” Darcy says. “Stunned or something, I guess.”

Clint lets out a sigh of relief, and then reaches for his quiver, dumping Kit Kats onto the stairwell floor until he finds — where is it? — there!

“EM arrow,” he says, pulling it from his quiver and waving it triumphantly. “We have a portal to close!”

The stairwell leads to the roof, so they climb up the seven flights to the top.

(“At least we’re in the mansion and not the tower,” Darcy huffs.)

From the roof, they have a perfect vantage point of the front lawn, including the teeming mass of fake trick-or-treaters currently wearing away the big main doors with a spray of laser bullets. The portal is just out of range of the doors, but Clint’s got a clear shot.

The city noises — backed-up traffic, the distant _whirr_ of a police chopper — and the high-pitched whining of the laser guns charging below fade away as he nocks the electromagnetic pulse arrow and takes aim, focusing.

Pull, aim, release.

There’s a rolling silence as the arrow finds it mark, cutting the alien screaming off, and then everything goes dark for a bit.

 

What comes of the night is a fourth viral photograph, of Clint on the top of the mansion, posed dramatically with bow in hand, the moonlight reflecting of the leather of his corset. The headlines say ridiculous things like: **Hawkeye? More Like Hot Guy!**

Tony prints one out and sticks it to the fridge.

“But aliens?” Clint says, staring at the news article in dismay. Natasha snorts.

Darcy hugs him from behind. “You saved Halloween, babe. We know that. Well, I mean, I helped save it. And it was mostly Jane, when it comes down to it. But you did part of it!”

Clint shrugs. He still has twenty six pounds of chocolate left, so he supposes this Halloween wasn’t a complete loss.

**Author's Note:**

> This ended up being kind of silly. Clint is dressed up as the [Hawkeye Initiative](http://thehawkeyeinitiative.com/tagged/hawkeye), of course! Happy Halloween!
> 
> Title is from "Ghostbusters" by Ray Parker Jr.


End file.
